ALCS: Tigers slammed out of playoffs, losing Game 6, 5-2, on Victorino's blast

Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Max Scherzer leaves the game in the seventh inning during Game 6 of the American League baseball championship series against the Boston Red Sox on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2013, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

BOSTON — The series turned on a grand slam after ace Max Scherzer left the contest in Game 2.

It was sealed by another one in Game 6.

Shane Victorino put the nail in the Tigers’ coffin with a go-ahead seventh-inning slam, sending the Red Sox on to the World Series with a 5-2 win in Saturday’s Game 6 of the American League Championship Series.

“Your heart just drops. As you said, it was like a pop-up. The ball just barely getting over the Monster, in most stadiums that’s probably an out. But here’s it’s a homer and he got the job done. ... That was a crushing blow,” Torii Hunter said. “Just couldn’t get it done. Baseball is a crazy game, a game of failure. We did that. That’s why we’re going home. We failed.”

It’s been 29 years since the Detroit Tigers won the last game of the Major League Baseball season.

And it will be at least one more.

They join the 1976-’78 Royals as the only team to reach three straight ALCS without winning a World Series.

Don’t ever doubt that the Tigers were expected to make it back after last year’s World Series appearance, either.

“I mean, when you get to this point in the year, the expectations are always high. The expectations were high coming into the spring, about as high as they could possibly be. But once you get to the playoffs, it’s a grind. You can’t say, ‘OK, we’re going to make it to the World Series.’ You can’t just say that, and end up there. I mean, you gotta play the games,” Justin Verlander said. “In my opinion, these were the two best teams in the American League, and it was one helluva series. Obviously, it’s unfortunate for us that it didn’t go our way.
“But it was a grudge match.”

And that made it all the more deflating when it was over.

“Definitely a roller-coaster of emotions,” Alex Avila said. “When you go from trying to give everything you have, in the intensity of the postseason, to being done, it’s definitely very difficult.”

It took awhile for some of the Tigers to leave the dugout at Fenway in the moments after ALCS MVP Koji Uehara threw the final pitch.

“I was there for a minute. I’m not a big fan of watching the other team celebrate,” said Justin Verlander, who’d taken a similar look at the San Francisco Giants celebrating their World Series title last year at Comerica Park.

“No one wants to (leave). It’s a painful thing. It’s painful every single year. Doesn’t matter if you don’t make the postseason, or don’t make it all the way to the World Series. If you don’t win it all, it’s always painful, because you can always find ways to think of what you should’ve done. That’s the thing that makes it numb tonight,” Scherzer said.
“We can relive all our mistakes, but at the end of the day, I think we’re going to look back at this team and realize how good it was.”

It looked like a good bet the Tigers might survive having to win two games at Fenway to move on, considering they had their two top starters — Scherzer and Verlander — ready to go in the final two games.

Scherzer certainly didn’t do anything to hurt those chances, giving up just one run in 6 2/3 innings of work.

“The game can come down to one pitch. But when you’re actually out there on the mound and when you’re pitching, you can’t be worrying about the margin of error or whatnot. You have to go with your strengths and what you believe is the right pitch and keep executing pitches,” Scherzer had said before the start.
“It’s a mental challenge now. You know you’re facing great lineups — I know Boston is a great lineup. You have to execute from pitch 1 all the way to your last pitch. And that’s a challenge is how many times you can do that.”

Like it had in Game 2, though, the game changed with one bases-loaded swing of the bat. Then, it was David Ortiz taking Joaquin Benoit into the Red Sox bullpen in right field.

This time, Victorino took Jose Veras deep over the Green Monster on an 0-2 curveball, the type of pitch that had previously been effective in getting Victorino out.

“Veras threw a decent breaking ball. Maybe wanted it a little bit lower, but in the end, he was trying make a great pitch. It was a little up, and he just got it over the wall. Give credit to Victorino for making adjustment,” Avila said.
“Our staff has pitched very well, our bullpen has pitched very well. I’m sure people will probably look at, and talk about that grand slam, and Ortiz’s grand slam, which is unfortunate. But our guys, all season and this postseason, pitched great. As disappointing as the loss is, I can’t be upset on how we played, how hard we played. They’re a great team over there, they played their ass off, too. I think the fans got everything they could ask for in a series.”

The Red Sox were the first team to ever hit two grand slams in the seventh inning or later in a single postseason series.

It was a series that featured three straight one-run games to start, and four in all. It was two very good pitching staffs for the most part stifling two very good offenses.

FIRST INNING: Torii Hunter led off with an infield single, and Clay Buchholz made it his mission to keep him close, throwing over continuously. That, and holding the ball between pitches made for a 16-plus-minute top half of the first.

BOTTOM FIRST INNING: Scherzer got two quick outs, then gave up a single to Dustin Pedroia after it looked like he might have had him struck out on a checked swing. He didn’t give David Ortiz a whole lot to hit, walking him to put two on, but got Mike Napoli to ground out to end the threat.

SECOND INNING: Scherzer struck out the side on just 13 pitches.

THIRD INNING: Scherzer walked as many batters — two — to lead off the inning as he had in the entirety of each of his first two starts. He got out of the jam in dramatic fashion, though, making a sliding basket catch in front of the plate when Shane Victorino popped up a bunt attempt, and then got Dustin Pedroia to ground into an inning-ending double play.
The biggest drama came when Scherzer hung a first-pitch slider to Pedroia, and the diminutive second baseman hammered it deep to left — and just inches wide of the foul pole. The play was reviewed to see if the ball clipped the foul pole on its way onto Landsdowne Street, well over the Green Monster.

Scherzer was the reverse image of the iconic Carlton Fisk moment, trying to wave it foul.

“I looked over at my bench, and they acknowledged it was a foul ball,” Scherzer said. “I just dodged a bullet, because I hung a slider. I was inches away from giving up a home run.”

FOURTH INNING: Scherzer struck out Napoli and Saltalamacchia, giving him six on the night. With his fifth, it gave the Tigers starters 52 strikeouts in the series, setting a new MLB postseason record. The old record was by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series, in seven games.

FIFTH INNING: Xander Bogaerts, the rising prospect who’d made Jose Iglesias a tradable commodity for the Red Sox, hammered a double off the Green Monster in the deepest part of left-center field. He scored easily on Jacoby Ellsbury’s single to right field, ahead of a four-hop throw from Torii Hunter, giving Boston a 1-0 lead.

Alex Avila threw out Ellsbury attempting to steal to end the inning, just the fifth time in 59 combined attempts in the regular and postseason.

SIXTH INNING: A leadoff walk by Hunter and a single by Cabrera spelled the end of the night for Buchholz, as Boston manager John Farrell went to a lefty specialist to face Prince Fielder. Franklin Morales issued a four-pitch walk to Fielder, though, and Victor Martinez hammered a single off the Monster in left-center with the bases loaded, scoring two to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead.

“Two of the best teams in the American League going at it, you’re going to have back-and-forth the whole time,” Scherzer said. “That’s what happened tonight. Ellsbury was able to get a single off me, score a run, and we were able to come back and get two runs, and ultimately they were able to have a big inning in the seventh to knock us out.”

Fielder’s baserunning goof on a Jhonny Peralta grounder helped slow the rally. He was caught in no-man’s land off third base when Peralta grounded sharply to second base, and tried to make it back, his belly flop toward the base coming up a foot or so short. He was tagged out there for the second out, then Brandon Workman struck out Avila to end the inning.

BOTTOM OF SIXTH INNING: Scherzer put himself in a jam right after getting the lead, plunking Victorino and walking Pedroia. He got Ortiz to fly out to left — where Don Kelly, who came on to run for Peralta in the top of the inning, made a running catch that the starter may not have — then struck out Mike Napoli. Both runners moved up on a wild pitch during the Napoli at-bat, but Scherzer stranded them there with a pop-up to short, and pumped his fist in exultation when the ball went up.

“For me, I was able to avoid some of the big innings, by pitching out of some jams, but eventually, you just can’t walk as many guys as I did tonight, against a quality team like that. When you’re giving them as many free passes as I did, you’re asking for trouble. I was able to handle some trouble, but I can’t withstand it all,” Scherzer said.
“That’s my own undoing.”

SEVENTH INNING: Austin Jackson singled with one outs, the eighth time he’s reached base in 11 plate appearances in the No. 8 spot, but got picked off. Jose Iglesias got yet another infield single, then Hunter surprised the Red Sox with a bunt, and Workman bobbled the ball.

Junichi Tazawa, who’d won the first two rounds of late-game confrontations with Cabrera — striking him out in Game 3, and inducing a double play in Game 5 — got the Tigers’ slugger to ground out on a spectacular diving play to shortstop Stephen Drew to end the inning.

BOTTOM OF SEVENTH: Jonny Gomes led off with a double just inches from the top of the Green Monster, a shot — like Bogaerts’ and Martinez’s before it — that probably would’ve been out of any other park in baseball.

“Fenway Park is a fun place to pitch in. You’ve got 38,000 fans all cheering against you. It’s an intense atmosphere. But really, the dimensions is something that does actually come into play, just because you can feel that wall is right behind you. So there’s just no room for error,” Scherzer said before the game.
“A routine fly ball can be a double in Fenway Park. So you’ve got to make sure you always execute pitches throughout the whole game.”

After Scherzer struck out Stephen Drew, he walked Bogaerts after getting ahead of him, 1-2, and his night was done.

Drew Smyly came on to face Ellsbury, and induced a grounder behind second base. But Iglesias bobbled it, loading the bases. Jose Veras got ahead of Victorino 0-2, but hung a curveball that Victorino quickly banged over the Green Monster for a grand slam.

NINTH INNING: After the Tigers went down in order on 10 pitches in the eighth, Boston closer Koji Uehara closed the door in the ninth, pitching around an infield single by Jackson.

“Just wish we could’ve played better as a team. We fought so hard to get to this position, and came up short. The Boston Red Sox beat us. That’s how it went down, and that’s how you should write it. They were the better team in this series,” Scherzer said, admitting that there were obviously several games in the series that could’ve gone either way.
“Always. Anytime you’re in these type of games, you know you’re going to be in situations where you can win. You’re right: There were a couple of situations we could’ve won. We didn’t. That’s the credit to the Red Sox for accomplishing what they were able to do.
“They’re a really good team. They’re good in all facets of the game. So to sit here and play the ‘What-ifs?’ would be taking away from what they were able to accomplish.
“They’re the reason they’re going on to the World Series.”

And the Tigers are not.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for Digital First Media. Read his “Out of Left Field” blog at opoutofleftfield.blogspot.com.

About the Author

Detroit Tigers beat writer for The Oakland Press in Pontiac, Michigan. Mowery has spent 18 years covering sports, from preps to pros. He’s been honored with more than 25 awards for writing. Reach the author at matt.mowery@oakpress.com
or follow Matthew B. on Twitter: @MatthewBMowery.